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INDIA-CLIMATE-GLACIER-FLOOD
Desperate search for survivors after India glacier disaster
TAPOVAN, India, Feb 9, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Indian rescue workers battled
through tonnes of rock and mud Tuesday searching for survivors in a choked
Himalayan tunnel after a deadly flood — apparently triggered by a glacial
burst — smashed through two mountain dam projects.
More than 170 people were still missing, two days after a wall of water
and debris hurtled down a valley in the northern state of Uttarakhand,
destroying bridges and roads, hitting two hydroelectric power plants and
killing 31.
The disaster has been blamed on rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayan
region caused by global warming. Building activity for dams and dredging
riverbeds for sand and the clearing of trees for new roads — some to beef up
defence on the Chinese border — are other factors.
Most of those missing were employees at two of the many hydro plants being
built around Uttarakhand, home to soaring Himalayan peaks and the sources of
the Ganges river.
Hundreds of rescue workers were involved in the operation across the state,
using helicopters equipped with surface-penetrating high-definition cameras,
as well as sniffer dogs.
On Tuesday the focus was attempting to locate and extract 34 workers who
were in a network of tunnels when the 20-metre-high (70-foot) barrage of icy
water and debris roared through on Sunday morning.
Workers toiled all night and police official Banudutt Nair, in charge of
the rescue operation, told AFP he believed that there were air pockets where
the employees could still be alive.
“Forty-eight hours have passed and it has become a race against time. We
hope they survive but there’s been no contact so far,” army rescuer Vivek
Sahai said.
Giant floodlights lit up one entrance late Monday as a huge excavator
slowly extracted the sludge which rescuers then sifted through.
Nearby, workers used heavy machinery to remove giant boulders from the road
blocking the way to the second power plant, Rishi Ganga, where 35 people were
missing.
The plant was obliterated and is now a wasteland thickly coated with
viscous grey mud. At a nearby village, four bodies were recovered on Tuesday
including that of a policeman.
Building projects crisscross highly-seismic Uttarakhand state despite
warnings from scientists about the impact on its ecologically fragile hills
and valleys.
– ‘Don’t let go’ – One of those who made it out was Rajesh Kumar, 28, who
together with others clung to scaffolding rods in the tunnel for four hours
before the water level fell and they were able to escape.
“Suddenly there was a sound of whistling… there was shouting, people were
telling us to come out. We thought it was a fire. We started running but the
water gushed in. It was like a Hollywood movie,” Kumar told AFP.
“We just kept telling each other — come what may, we must not let go of
the rods,” he said from his hospital bed.
Shopkeeper Ramesh Negi was enjoying the Sunday morning sun when he heard a
loud roar and saw a huge wall of water smash into and sweep away a bridge.
Dozens of workers on the river bed and grazers leading their cattle along
the mountain slopes disappeared beneath the sudden deluge, he recalled.
“There was dust and screams all over,” the 36-year-old told AFP.
“We tried to alert the grazers but they were blown away by the wind
pressure before being consumed by the water and slush. We can only guess what
happened.”
Mangra, another survivor, remembered hearing a loud, rumbling sound and the
screams of other colleagues: “Run, run, run!”
The 28-year-old scrambled out of the tunnel but six of his friends and
neighbours from his village didn’t make it.
“It felt like the mountain was crashing and the Earth was moving,” Mangra
told AFP outside the tunnel, cuts and scrapes on his hands and legs.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1640 hrs